


Lifeline

by Littleshebear



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17695727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littleshebear/pseuds/Littleshebear
Summary: Suraya worries as she faces up to the practicalities of being in love with an immortal.





	Lifeline

Hawthorne lounges on Zavala’s couch, leaning against his chest. Hawthorne had organised some quality time for them to spend together, decreeing that they’d both been working entirely too hard over the last few days. She picked out a pre-golden age vid for them to watch, about a group of warriors who agreed to protect a village from bandits, for little to no reward. Hawthorne had assumed it would be right up Zavala’s street but he’s not paying attention to it. He seems far more interested in her hands.

He holds one of her hands in his, a soft smile playing on his lips as he studies it intently. He runs his thumb back and forth over her fingers, turning her hand this way and that. Hawthorne wonders what could be possibly be so fascinating about it. She knows, that by any conventional standard, her hands are not attractive. She lacks the soft skin and elegant fingers that everyday wisdom says is desirable. Hawthorne’s hands are rough and worn from a lifetime of hard work, her nails short and unmanicured.

“What are you looking at, Zav?” She asks.

“You.” He replies simply. With that answer, she fancies that he’s trying to read her like one of his books, gleaning her story from each blemish;  These calluses came about forging weapons from salvage. This rough skin is from spending so much time outside in the damp air. Those faint, hairline scars on her wrist stem from when she was a young falconer and her first charges had punished her for her inexperience.

He turns her hand over and begins brushing his thumb up and down her palm, slowly gliding over the lines there. Hawthorne feels her skin erupt in gooseflesh when he begins to circle his thumb around and around the juncture between her palm and her wrist. She’d never thought of that spot as an erogenous zone before but clearly, Zavala knows something she doesn’t. It stands to reason, she supposes. He’s old, he’s probably seen it all.

He is old. The realisation hits her suddenly when he starts tracing his thumb up and down her lifeline. She’s so much younger than him but she’ll age so much faster. These lines that he’s so admiring now will only deepen and be joined by many others as the years go by, but he won’t change. She feels herself tensing up, all those relaxing sensations he’d caused deserting her suddenly.

Zavala pauses in his ministrations. “What’s wrong?” Not, are you all right? Or, Is there something wrong? He knows something’s up. Hawthorne wonders if that perceptiveness is an age thing, an Awoken thing or a Guardian thing. Maybe it’s just a Zavala thing.

“Nothing,” she demurs, repositioning herself against his chest. “Just getting comfortable.” It’s an unconvincing lie but she had to come up with something. How does she explain that she’s suddenly mired in an existential crisis, brought on by something as simple as a caress? She can’t bring herself to describe her fear at the thought of becoming a burden to him; would he come to resent her, would he fall out of love with her? Or would he stand loyally by her, watching her fade, while he remained strong and vital? She can’t decide which would be worse.

Zavala stays silent for a few moments, probably weighing whether or not to press the issue. He eventually lifts her hand to his lips and places a kiss to the base of her palm. Hawthorne supposes this is to comfort her, to let her know he is there for her. If only he knew that the source of her anxiety is the knowledge that she won’t always be there for him.

She curls into his arms, forcing his hand away from her lips and towards the back of her head. She makes a show of concentrating on the film. She doesn’t really know what’s going on at this stage; the actors speak in a language she doesn’t understand, she hasn’t been paying attention to the subtitles and the pre-golden age cultural subtleties are utterly lost on her. She closes her eyes as he starts to gently rub his fingertips back and forth across the nape of her neck. This is calming to her, and he knows it. She relaxes into his touch and resolves to enjoy this for now. She lays her palm over his chest, feeling out for a heartbeat she knows will far outlast her own.


End file.
